Blueprint of a Vineyard - Step by Step Part 2

Welcome to the Kosher Teruah. I'm Simon Jacob, your host for this episode from Jerusalem. Before we get started, no matter where you are, please take a moment to pray for the safe return home of all our soldiers, and the full return of all the remains of our hostages. If you're driving in your car, please focus on the road ahead. If you're relaxing at home, please open a delicious bottle of kosher wine and pour a glass, sit back and relax. Welcome back to The Kosher Terroir. In our last episode, we started with Part 1 of the architecture of a vineyard. So, the vineyard is built and the vines are growing. Now the game changes. We move from architecture to management. We have two main goals here: manage the solar panel, the leaves, and defend the payload, the fruit. Let's talk about the leaves first. This is called canopy management. The grapevine is solar-powered. The leaves are the panels that turn sunlight into sugar. You might think more leaves equals more sugar equals better. Wrong. If the canopy is too thick, 3 bad things can happen. The first is disease. It becomes a humid jungle inside. And mildew loves this. Also, you start to get vegetal flavors. If the grape clusters are buried in total darkness, they accumulate a compound called methoxypyrazine. This tastes like green bell pepper, and it's the enemy of ripe red wine. Also, if you're spraying organic fungicide It hits the outer leaves but never touches the fruit inside, so you end up with uneven spraying. So we perform surgery. It's called leaf pulling. Usually on the morning side of the row, the east side, we strip the leaves away from the fruit zone. We leave the grapes naked. This exposes them to the gentle morning sun. It burns off the green flavors. It toughens the skin so it has more tannins and more color. But on the afternoon side, the west, we leave the leaves on.

Why?

Because the afternoon sun in Israel and California is kind of like a death ray. If we expose the fruit to that 3 PM heat, we get cooked flavors, prunes and raisins. So we are sculpting the light, naked on the east, clothed on the west. But now we face a different threat. As the grapes ripen, they change color. This is called verison. They fill with sugar. To us, this is the path to wine. To nature, this is actually a dinner bell. Birds are the single smartest, most frustrating enemy of the winemaker. And they are picky eaters. They wait until the grapes are almost perfect, about 22 or 23 brix, and then they strike. They don't just eat whole grapes, they peck. One peck breaks the skin, juice leaks out, vinegar bacteria gets in, so that one pecked berry can turn an entire cluster into a bowl of acidic acid, or vinegar, that ruins the tank. So how do we fight them? We start cheap. We hang shiny reflective tape that flashes in the sun. We fly kites shaped like hawks. The problem: birds are incredibly intelligent. They figure out in about 72 hours, "Oh, that hawk hasn't moved in 3 days." It's fake. Let's go back to eating. Next, we escalate to propane cannons. These are machines that sit in the vineyard and fire a blank shotgun blast every 20 minutes.

Boom!

And also, we use speakers playing distress calls of starlings being murdered. The problem: your neighbors will hate you, and eventually the birds will get used to the rhythm. I've seen birds perching on a propane cannon waiting for the boom, completely unfazed. Or you can call in the biological air force. This is the elegant solution: falconry. Some vineyards hire professionals who come with trained peregrine falcons or hawks. They fly the predators over the vineyard at dawn and dusk, They don't actually catch the starlings, they just scare them. When a flock of starlings sees a real predator, the fear is primal. They clear the airspace instantly. It's 100% effective, but it's expensive. You are paying a pilot and a bird by the hour. And then the nuclear option. Netting. If you're growing high-value grapes, maybe a Grand Cru plot, you stop playing games. You net. There's a few types of netting. Side netting, where we roll out long strips of mesh that cover just the fruit zone. It's like a belt. It stops the birds, but it allows the leaves above to keep working. Or over the row netting. This is the drape. We cover the entire row, top to bottom. It looks like a vineyard wearing a veil. It's labor-intensive. It is a nightmare to put on and take off. But if done properly, it guarantees the fruit you grew is the fruit you harvest. Again, we have built the skeleton. We have managed the canopy. We have secured the perimeter against birds. Now we need to talk about the lifeblood of the vineyard: water. In the Old World, in places like Bordeaux and Burgundy, irrigation is largely illegal. They rely on the rain. They are at the mercy of the vintage. If it rains too much, diluted wine. If it rains too little, stress. But in the new world, and especially here in Israel, we treat water differently. We don't view irrigation as watering the plants. We view it as mind control. It starts when the vine is a baby. If you water a young vine every day for 20 minutes, you're spoiling it. The roots stay right on the surface waiting for their daily meal. These are lazy roots. Instead, we do something counterintuitive. We flood the vine, and then we walk away and let the soil dry out completely. The vine panics. It says, "I need water," and it sends roots down. We wait, we wait, until the vine is almost fainting. Then we water it again, deeply. We are training the roots to chase the moisture table. We are forcing them deep into the subsoil. Once the vine is mature, we use a technique called RDI—regulated deficit irrigation. This is the art of strategic dehydration. Here is the biology. A vine has two modes. Mode A, vegetative growth. I'm happy, I have water, I'm going to grow long shoots and big leaves. Or Mode B, reproductive mode. I'm stressed, I might die, I need to make seeds, grapes, right now so my DNA survives. Winemakers want Mode B, so early in the season we give water But once the fruit sets, we cut the water off. We starve the vines. The vine stops growing green shoots and pushes all of its energy into the berries. The berries stay small, which we want—high skin-to-juice ratio. It is a high-wire act. If you stress it too much, the leaves turn yellow and the sugar stops accumulating. If you stress it too little, you get diluted wine. How do we know when to stop? In the old days, growers would go out and kick the dirt, maybe looking at the angle of the leaf, and say, "Turn on the water." Today, the vineyard is a cyborg. It's wired. Some vineyards use drones or even satellite imaging of the vineyard. They don't take normal images. They take NDVI— normalized difference vegetation index images. These measure the infrared light reflecting off the chlorophyll. The result is a heat map, and the growers look at it on an iPad. The map shows the vineyard in colors. Blue-green: these vines are vigorous. They have too much water. Red-yellow: these vines are weak. They're thirsty. In the past, we would irrigate the whole field the same. Now we have variable rate irrigation. The computer tells the drip lines to give row 10 more water and row 20 less water. We're equalizing the block. But it gets even crazier. We now use sap flow sensors. We drill a tiny needle into the trunk of a Sentinel vine. It heats up a tiny pulse of sap and measures how fast that sap is moving in the trunk. It is quite literally measuring the vine's heartbeat. When the sun comes up, the sap moves faster—transpiration. When the vine gets thirsty, the flow slows down. The sensor sends a text message to the vineyard team's phone: Block 4 is experiencing a stress level 8. Turn on the water. Many teams now use dendrometers in the vineyard. These are micrometers that clamp onto the trunk. Did you know that a vine shrinks during the day? As it sweats out water, the trunk physically contracts. At night, it drinks and expands. The dendrometer measures these microscopic contractions. If the trunk shrinks too much, and doesn't bounce back at night, we know that we're in a danger zone. So we aren't just farming anymore. We are piloting a biological machine. We have the data, we have the control, but the data is useless without the human to interpret it. And this brings us to the final piece of the puzzle: the relationships. Because you can have the best sensors in the world, But if the winemaker and the grower hate each other, you're going to make bad wine. So we've talked about the rocks, the sunlight, the clones, and the sensors. We've designed the perfect machine. But here is the truth about viticulture. You can have the best terroir in the world, you can have the most expensive French rootstock, and you can have satellite data beamed to your iPad. But if the people running the vineyard don't understand each other, you will make bad wine. In every great vineyard, there are three distinct voices. Sometimes in a very small winery, these three voices are inside one person's head, which is a recipe for insanity. But usually They are three different people, and they are often at war. You have the agronomist, you have the grower, and you have the winemaker. To understand why wine tastes the way it does, you have to understand the fight that happens between these three people in the middle of a row of Cabernet. Let's meet them. First, the agronomist. This is the scientist, the academic, the doctor. When an agronomist walks into the vineyard, they aren't looking for romance, they're looking for symptoms. They look at a leaf, you see a green leaf, they see a magnesium deficiency. They look at the soil, you see dirt, they see a nematode infestation. They look at a weather forecast You see a sunny day, they see a spike in evapotranspiration rates and a potential mite flare-up. The agronomist's motivation is health. They want a perfect, green, thriving organism. They lose sleep over viruses and they are terrified over powdery mildew. Their nightmare is a leaf rolling up. Because of a virus called leafroll. So their instinct is to intervene. The vine is sick, give it medicine, spray. The vine is hungry, give it food, fertilizer. The vine is thirsty, open the tap. They are the chief of medicine at the hospital. They want the patient to survive and thrive. But as we know, sometimes to make great wine, the patient needs to suffer a bit, and that drives the agronomists crazy. Next we have the grower. This is the farmer, the logistician, the one with the muddy boots and the cracked hands. The grower doesn't care about magnesium deficiencies in the abstract. They care about, can I get a tractor down row 14 without hitting a post? The grower's motivation is survival and tonnage. And this is where the dirty secret of the wine industry comes out. In 90% of the farming contracts, the grower is paid by ton. They sell grapes by weight. Let's do the math. If a vine produces 10 bunches of grapes, the grower makes $10. If the same vine produces 20 bunches of grapes, the grower makes $20. The grower wants a heavy crop. They want big juicy berries full of water. Weight is money. Also, the grower is the one who has to deal with the labor crew. If the winemaker says we need to harvest at 3 AM on Sunday, the grower is the one who has to tell the 20 tired workers to get out of bed. The grower is a pragmatist. They look at the sky and say, it's going to rain, let's pick now. They are the anchor of reality. And finally, the winemaker, the chef, the The Diva, the Visionary. The winemaker walks into the vineyard and they are the enemy of everything the other two stand for. The agronomist wants healthy, big vines. The winemaker says, "No, stop watering it. I want it to struggle. I want the roots to dig." The grower wants a heavy crop of 20 bunches. The winemaker says, "No." Cut half of them off and throw them on the ground. I want concentration. The winemaker's motivation is style and score. They don't care if the vine is happy, they care if the fruit is interesting. They're willing to push the vine to the brink of death, starving it of water to concentrate the sugars, expose it to the sun to thicken the skins. Just to get that one specific flavor profile. So imagine the scene. It's July, it's 35°C, 95°F. The three of them are standing in a dusty row of Merlot. The agronomist says, the vines are stressed, the leaves are yellowing, we need to irrigate immediately or we risk shutting down. The grower says, I agree, 'Also, the crop looks light. If we don't have water, the berries will shrivel, and I won't make my quota. Turn on the water.' And the winemaker screams, 'Don't you dare touch that valve!' Why? Because the winemaker knows that if you water now, the berries will bloat, you will have diluted flavors, and you will make watery, boring wine. So who wins? The health of the plant, the wallet of the farmer, or the taste of the wine? Let me tell you a story about the most painful day in the vineyard. It's called the green harvest. This happens around veresan, when the grapes turn color. The winemaker looks at the vine and sees 10 bunches. He knows that the vine only has enough energy to ripen 5 bunches, to Grand Cru quality. If it tries to ripen 10, they will all be mediocre. So the winemaker orders a green drop. He tells the grower, "Go through the field and cut 50% of the fruit and just throw it on the ground." To a grower, this is a sin. It's actually physically painful. Imagine telling a factory owner, to take half of his inventory and set it on fire. You are walking down the row cutting perfectly good grapes, grapes that you have watered, pruned, and protected for months, and letting them rot in the dust. You are literally throwing money away. The grower hates the winemaker at this moment. The agronomist thinks it's wasteful. But the winemaker knows This is the only way. So how do we fix this broken marriage? How do we stop the grower from sneaking water to the vines? How do we stop the winemaker from bankrupting the grower? It all comes down to two things: contracts and memory. The best wineries in the world, and the best kosher wineries in Israel and California, have stopped paying by the ton. They pay by hectare or acre. The winemaker goes to the grower and says, as an example, I will pay you $15,000 for this hectare of land, period. Whether we harvest 10 tons or 1 ton, I'm renting your skill, not buying your fruit. Suddenly the psychology flips. The grower says, Oh, so I get paid the same even if I drop half the fruit? And I don't have to haul as much heavy fruit? Suddenly the grower wants to do the green harvest. The incentives are aligned. They are now partners in quality, not adversaries in quantity. And finally, the secret weapon: the archive. A great winemaker tracks the vineyard. Like a stalker. They don't just buy Cabernet from the Golan. They track Block 4, Row 10 through 50. They keep a transcript. In 2015, we picked Row 10. It made the Reserve Cabernet, 95 points. In 2016, we picked Row 10. It made the Reserve again. In 2017, We picked row 10. Reserve again. Over 10 years, you build a report card. You realize that this specific patch of dirt, maybe because of a vein of limestone or a curve in the hill, is simply magic. Once you know that, the relationship changes. The agronomist stops treating the vines like patients and starts treating them like Olympians. The grower stops treating them like a crop and starts treating them like a jewel. And the winemaker? The winemaker stops screaming and starts listening. This is the human element. The technology, the sensors, the drones, the chemistry— It's all just the dashboard, but the driver is this relationship. When you taste a wine that feels disjointed or confused, you are often tasting a compromised relationship. But when you taste a wine that sings, when the fruit is pure, the structure is sound, and the finish is long, you are tasting a moment where the doctor, the farmer, and the chef all agree on the exact same vision. So take a step back. Look at what we've built today. A few minutes ago, we stood on bare, scrubby hillside. There was nothing there but potential and risk. Now look around. We analyzed the macro terroir, hunting for that perfect intersection of altitude and latitude, where the nights are cool enough to save the acid. We dug into the soil, choosing the drainage, the gravel, or the muscle of clay, understanding that we weren't just planting in dirt, we were planting in a chemical pantry. We engineered the genetics, welding the engine of a drought-resistant rootstock to the chassis of a specific Cabernet clone, creating a biological machine designed for this specific hillside. We built the skeleton, twisting the trellises to hide the fruit from the blistering afternoon sun while catching the gentle morning rays. We wired the vineyard into the matrix, installing sensors that text us when the vines are thirsty. And finally, we built the human element, the fragile peace treaty between the agronomist, the grower, and the winemaker. The architecture is complete, the factory is built, but unlike a car factory or a software startup, You don't get to flip the switch and start making money. Now we enter the most excruciating phase of all: the silence. For the average winemaker in France or Napa, you might sneak a tiny harvest in year 3 just to see what you have. But for us, for the kosher winemaker, we have the law of orlah. In the Torah, in Sefer Vayikra chapter 19, verse 23, it says, "3 years it shall be forbidden to you. It shall not be eaten." This is the ultimate test of faith. Imagine you have spent millions of dollars. You have paid for the land, the tractors, the trellis wire, The labor of the water. You have sweated through 3 blistering summers. And in year 3, the vines finally produce fruit. Beautiful, purple, perfect clusters. And what do you do? You walk into the vineyard, you look at them, and you let them fall to the ground. You watch thousands of dollars of potential revenue rot. Into the soil. You cannot pick it. You cannot taste it. You cannot sell it. It's a lesson in humility. During a recent visit with my friend Nadav Jesselson, owner of Anava Vineyards, I asked him how he felt during the third year and keeping orlah. His answer was simply beautiful. Here it is. You're already starting to cultivate these vineyards, but when you started and you had orla, what was that like for you?

So in the third year, there was a lot of fruit on the trees, and we brought groups to cut them down. And the reason we did it is because we wanted, you know, the trees to strengthen and not give more energy to the fruits, because we're not— we don't need the fruits. So we cut them down. There's another reason that you don't want anybody to eat the fruit. So you just cut them down to the ground. So then you prevent them, anybody from coming and tasting the fruit.

You just cut the clusters. You cut the clusters.

Cut the clusters to the ground. And a few times people from the group looked at me and asked me the same question. They said, how do you do it? Doesn't it break your heart? So psychologically, I told them that because I don't think these fruits are mine. Right. And I really believe that the whole concept of olah is to put you in the state of mind that this— to teach you patience and to teach you, you know, that again, that it's not yours. Don't take it for granted. So it was easy for me when I was cutting them down. I didn't feel like it's a waste. I felt these fruit are not for me. These are not for anybody. These fruit are not ready. It's not right to eat them. That's what I felt. Because when you come prepared, I think, and you're not suddenly think it's yours and then it's not, then it could be a big mashbir. But for me, it wasn't hard to cut down the ulayirs. Again, the opposite. I feel it's good for me. I feel it's good for the trees. I feel it's good for the land. It was an amazing experience. And we also, we brought groups. It's a fun work. And one of the things that we try to do here is to leave works that I could give for groups. I feel it's one of my missions, obligations, you know, for Anava, it's all about connecting. and for that reason, if there is any work in the vineyard that I could bring volunteers, I think it is, for me, it is part of being a farmer in Israel, is to allow people to come and touch the land and feel it. So that was a win-win.

But as I mentioned before, Nadav's comments, it is a lesson in humility. It reminds us that we We are the architects, yes, but we are not the owners. We partner with someone much greater than us. But then, year 4 arrives. It's late August, the month of Elul. The air gets heavy, the nights start to get a little longer. You walk the rows again. The vines are older now. Their trunks are thicker, wood, not green shoots. You pull a berry. Pop it in your mouth. The skin is soft, the seed is browned. The flavor explodes—black currant, spice, and dust. The architecture phase is over. The blueprint is alive. The sugar is at 24 bricks. We're ready. The silence is broken. The pumps turn on, the trucks fire up their engines, and the controlled chaos we talked about It's here. It's now. But that's a story for our next episode. I'm Simon Jacob. This has been The Kosher Terroir. Thank you for building this vineyard with me. This is Simon Jacob again, your host of today's episode of The Kosher Terroir. Please subscribe via your podcast provider to be informed of our new episodes as they are released. If you're new to The Kosher Terroir, please check out our many past episodes.